The Lost Necklace (Revised)
by ThoopidSqwrl
Summary: Seven years since Zim has had any earth-conquering plans. Gaz has remained her antisocial self until an old enemy returns and turns their world upside down. Was Gaz's necklace really just a necklace or was it something much more powerful? Come along on this epic adventure and experience it for yourself!
1. Announcement

So it has been an eternity since I last made a story but I am back and I am going to be revising and adding to an old story of mine. I still have a passion for how this story was planned out and I hope you all will enjoy it! If you never saw the original one, go check it out as once I'm caught up on revising the chapters, I will be deleting the original one! Anyway, I look forward to redoing and extending this old story of mine!


	2. An Average Day

Disclaimer: I don't own Invader Zim blah blah blah...

This takes place 7 years later. For all of those ZADR and ZATR people out there I will not make this one of those stories, I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure Dib and Tak would rather kill Zim than be in a love relationship with him.

* * *

It was another normal day for Gaz, well, as normal as it gets. She woke up and showered, hoping Dib didn't use all the hot water up like he does a lot. She went over to the kitchen to eat, barely catching her dad before he left for work, as he often would. "Goodbye daughter, goodbye son." He cheerfully said before leaving. The door slammed shut behind him and Gaz walked over to the table, punched Dib for eating her cereal and he fell out of his chair and got back up with nothing but an eye roll. At this point, he was used to the mistreatment by his sister. Gaz served herself a bowl and sat down across from him. Dib had a stack of papers on the table and was finishing his calculus for the semester. "We just started, jeez. I don't know why you feel the need to try so hard." Dib ignored her and continued on with his work. When she finished she walked over to the T.V. to watch some of her shows before she had to leave for skool but ended up spending most of the time just flipping through channels.

She left for skool with Dib as usual, with him rambling on about how he was going to expose Zim. Then Zim caught up with them to mock Dib about his abnormally large head, as usual. They got into an argument about something having to do with a toad and Zim's skin color, as usual. Then she would yell at them for being too loud and warn them that if they didn't shut up they were going to regret it, as usual. It was a routine that played itself out to death at this point and it seemed to be endless.

She went to all the same pointless classes with all the same, stupid, pointless people. She ate the same disgusting food since elementary skool. 'Seven years' she thought to herself 'seven years and you still haven't done much with your life or even slightly changed how you live it. You still have never had a relationship with anyone. Nothing in the boring world had changed. Nothing.' The word rang in her head like a bell and bounced around in there like a balloon with the air let out. She slumped back in her desk as the teacher went on with her lecture about something that none of the students would care about by the end of class. She looked up at her laptop from her slouched posture and was playing games, expertly jumping around and killing everything in sight. And as usual, she won the match. At this rate, Gaz could go pro if she really had the motivation or really a reason other than prize money.

When the ball finally rang, she let out a sigh of relief as if this was a divine gift from above telling her she had to endure no longer. The air was its normal, smoggy look and the sky was the same grim color from the heavy pollution of the city. The sound of students talking filled the courtyard of the of the skool as Gaz walked with Dib. Gaz walked in silence and looked down at her phone, watching a video on ToobYou on how to develop your own game. There was a muffled noise that she heard through her earbuds and she gritted her teeth a bit as she knew it was Dib, talking about some dumb nonsense that didn't matter to her. Why? Just why did he have to use her as his personal vent for all of his problems? Regardless it was irritating. No matter how many times she's had to listen to him over the years, his voice seemed to feel like a knife raking through her eardrum and she was at her boiling point now and if he kept talking, she was going to snap. Slowly, she took off an earbud, her hand moving with sharpness and grace, and she turned her head to look over at Dib. He was going on about some dumb encounter with Zim as she had guessed.

"I mean you should have seen me out there, I was jumping everywhere and doing all these cool flips!" Dib yelled with enthusiasm as he gestured with his hands, making a flipping motion.

"Can you just shut up three seconds?! I'm sick hearing the same stuff every day from you! Just keep it to yourself." She scoffed when he looked down at the ground like a pitiful puppy and put her earbud back in.

The two of them got home and Gaz worked on her next couple of levels of her game on her Game Slave 5 which, as usual, was a breeze. She went over to watch some T.V. until Dib went in to watch another one of his paranormal T.V. shows that he seemed to always be so engulfed in. She found it strange how her brother, with a head the size of a pumpkin and the ability to create technology that rivaled his dad's creations, could be so stupid and sucked into this paranormal mumbo-jumbo. Gaz got up and told Dib as she was leaving "I'm going to Bloaty's, I'll be back in a couple of hours." Her brother only responded with a grunt as she left.

A few hours later Gaz was back, only to find that Dib had been knocked unconscious by Zim who was looking through Dib's computer, muttering to himself about how hard it was to knock him out this time. She didn't really mind Zim all that much as long as he didn't hurt her brother too badly, that was her job and she'll be damned if anyone else would do a better job at hurting him than her. She quietly watched from the door, she noted how Zim had really grown in size throughout the past seven years, he even hovered above some of the shorter students in the school. Though, this didn't matter to his level of power anymore as he was no longer part of the Irken empire anymore. The memory of how that happened began to unfold in her mind.

* * *

She remembered, even if it was nearly over 3 years ago, how depressed he had been the whole week and how he was even more antisocial than usual. It was later revealed, after Dib stalking him for a couple of hours and her tagging along as usual since he always seemed to bite off more than he could chew in these fights with Zim. It was during one of these faithful "operations" that they discovered Zim had been officially told about his "mission" by the tallest, and they were brutally honest with him. They didn't sugarcoat one tiny detail, even down to the fact that Gir was just pulled together with some scraps from the trash. To be honest, she felt just an ever-so-slightly bit bad for the little alien then, on earth he had nobody, the only thing that got him out bed was probably that he thought has was sent fo a truly glorious reason and that when he finished, he would be glorified and honored.

After that, Zim just kind of gave up on the invader thing and conquering the planet as a whole, he just went on to humiliating Dib as much as possible which in any way possible, in her eyes, was a worthy job and not too difficult. It definitely made him less of a nuisance to her since she wouldn't have to tag along with Dib on his shenanigans anymore. However, most of the time he just pulled petty pranks, like he was putting minimal effort into it at that point. Snakes in a can but with rea snakes. Putting peanut butter in his shoes. It was kinda lame. He never socialized with anyone or even showed any want to talk to anyone outside of Dib to insult him. Even after all these years, Zim had no one, the closest he had come to someone of his kind was Tak all those years ago and even she hated him down his very core.

Throughout that whole week Dib had beaten, tazed, drenched and humiliated Zim in front of just about everyone at the school, but the alien just shrugged it off and continued for the rest of the week like that. He barely gave a rebuttal to insult Dib, and most of the time it wasn't even well put together. It was only until Zim came to face the truth, that he was all alone and there was nothing he could do about it except live his super-extended life, that he finally got off of his butt and began to do something beyond moping around all day. From that day he figured he might as well make the most of his time and do what he enjoys the most, humiliating the Dib-stink as he would say.

* * *

Gaz snapped back into the present and stared at Zim for a moment, and thought to herself 'Wait, if he's no longer trying to take over the planet, then why is he downloading information from Dib's computer. There was nothing embarrassing on there and not much he could do outside of putting out an embarrassing email. Not like Dib hasn't done that on his own as it is.' Trust me, she had searched through his computer many times for the same purpose.

Gaz walked up to the alien exile, who was too busy searching through the computer to notice her. When she came up to him she said in loud voice "Watcha lookin' for?"

Zim had been caught off guard and screamed "Gaahhhhhh!" as he fell back in the computer chair and thrashing his arms and legs around, just being as dramatic as he could. As he was climbing back to his feet, Zim retorted "You really shouldn't sneak up on and Irken invader like the that, you can get seriously hurt. There's no telling what the MIGHTY ZIM could do to you out of reflex."

Gaz corrected him and said "Ex".

Zim gave her his signature, non-existent eyebrow raise as he looked at her with a reply. "Huh?"

Gaz rolled her squinted eyes. "Ex-Invader" she finally said.

Zim looked hurt hearing it out loud, he hadn't really had anyone to tell it to him like that yet so it cut deep. His cheeks turned a deep green as he stammered for something to say. "Well- I- Umm... You watch yourself. Invader, or not, I, THE MIGHTY ZIM, could make your life more miserable than you can imagine..." His voice trailed off and he paused for a second. He looked at her for a moment in silence before turning away and putting his focus back on the computer. "Dib's schedule," he said replying to the girl's question from earlier.

Gaz pushed him aside with little effort and navigated through Dib's files and a folder with a few documents before pulling up Dib's schedule. She gestured him over and showed him the schedule. "Here, now hurry up and go before I have to hurt you." She paused and looked up at him as he downloaded the file. "So why do you need this stuff anyway?" said asked.

Zim looked over and replied "If you must know, human. If I am to be efficient in how much humiliation I can cause to the Dib-stink, I must know when and where he is at all times so that I am not aimlessly walking about, looking for him. Why are you helping Zim anyway?"

"I enjoy my brother's misery" she answered.

After a few minutes, Gaz left the alien to study and look over the schedule briefly. A few minutes later she heard Zim leave, heeding to her threat of pain she had given to him. She returned to her game for a while and waited for Dib to wake up before going off to her room and lying down in bed. She stared at her ceiling for a while as she collected her thoughts and reviewed the day and thought 'All in a day's work' before dozing off to sleep, dreading the next day as she always does.

* * *

This was my final edit on this, it's been a long time since I did this and redoing this story was tons of fun. I hope all of you enjoyed it and I look forward to hearing your replies and seeing some reviews! Leave a comment or whatever, feedback is great!


	3. Aggression Released

OK is chapter picks up some speed and will officially begin the conflict of the story. This is where the T rating comes in, for some language, violence, and one offensive gesture, nothing much. I heavily revised this chapter and I hope you guys enjoy. Sorry for the long wait between updates. I live on my own so things get really busy but I promise the next one will be a lot sooner!

* * *

The morning procedure repeated itself the next day, just as dull and pointless as the others. Gaz dragging her half-asleep carcass out of bed and into the shower, going downstairs to the kitchen just in time to catch her dad saying his last minute, very rushed out goodbyes. Next would be the basic daily routine of Zim and Dib arguing over whatever they could conjure up on their way to skool, doing her best to drown out the childish racket the two meatheads would raise doing so. However, it was when she got to skool that everything changed.

The class was brimming with more chatter than usual, something Gaz noted as she approached the room, her curiosity peaking as she reached the door and noticed an unfamiliar face next to the door. A new girl stood in the corner at the front of the class, looking as if she was old enough to be a senior. 'Dib's age huh? Wonder what got her held back a full year…'' she thought to herself as the teacher hushed the classroom as the bell rang.

"Alright everyone, settle down now. That's enough, That's enough. Alright, everyone we have a new student joining us today, she comes from a long ways trip across the pond, the UK. So everyone make sure to give her a warm welcome. I'll let her finish up her own introduction." He stepped back over to his desk and sat down as the pale-skinned girl stepped forward.

When the girl spoke to the class, her English accent and her deliberate pronunciation tore through the air like a bullet through flesh, only one person Gaz had ever met talked in such a way. 'Tak' Gaz thought, almost saying it out loud as the sudden realization hit her. She looked wildly different this time though, having jet black hair with a few dark pink highlights in a pixie-cut style, she wore a plain black hoodie with hot pink jeans that had buckles spackled all over, giving the look of skydiving pants, and her purple combat boots made her look just a little bit taller so she could fit in a bit better.

"Well as he said, I'm from the UK. Not much to say about that, just a bit crowded over there and mum and dad had us move over here because of dad's job…" Tak scanned over the classroom as it seemed she was looking for a familiar face and she trailed off a bit as she noticed Gaz in the back. "It's nice to meet you all and I hope we all get along, I'm thrilled to be moving somewhere new and meeting new people. It's a luxury you don't have when you grow up in the same town for years. And as a small little celebration for new beginnings, I brought everyone some sweets from back home." She tossed little bags around the room to each person, Gaz didn't even bother trying to catch it, not amused by the show Tak was putting on display. It bounced off Gaz's forehead and onto her desk as she maintained eye contact with Tak.

Her speech wrapped up her introduction to the class and gathered her things. There was a brief moment of intensity between the two girls as Tak walked over to her desk, their eyes locking in on each other with almost a killer intent behind them before she sat in an empty seat right next to Gaz. Her actions spoke many times over to Gaz in the form of taunts as if she was saying, 'I'm here and there's nothing you can do about it. Make your move.'

* * *

Come lunchtime, Gaz sat at her table with Dib as per normal. He was basically drooling over the sight of the new girl, his eyes glazed over with admiration of someone he didn't even know yet, well as far he knew. They sat there for a moment in uncomfortable and awkward silence for Gaz before she sighed with high annoyance at the ignorance of Dib before nonchalantly speaking up and saying "You know that's Tak in disguise right?" Dib inhaled sharply as he took a swing of his milk nearly spit it out all over Gaz, but wisely stopped himself, and he swallowed painfully before nearly screaming "WHAT!?"

Gaz lowered her shoulders and flopped her head back with irritation, giving a disgruntled growl "Yeah, she came into my class today and gave us this whole stupid speech on how thrilled she was to be in our class, then she gave everyone gifts like it was Christmas." This was all too familiar to Dib as he thought back to how she introduced herself on Valentine's Day.

Thinking over how it all went on over and over, Gaz only succeeded in making herself more annoyed at the situation until she slammed her hands on the table, startling Dib, and got up and walked across the cafeteria over to Tak "You're not fooling anyone with that little costume TAK."

Tak only gave a sly and almost sarcastic grin as she was unphased by Gaz's remark and simply replied "Well it seems that I'm fooling everyone else" and she raised both hands in the air gesturing the whole cafeteria.

Gaz knew that Tak was just about the only perso..well creature that was a threat to this planet. Gaz warned her "Just don't go on trying to destroying the planet again or you'll regret it. I'll kick your ass again if I have to."

Tak scoffed at the threat "I'll do as I please" And she gave Gaz a middle finger as she leaned over in her seat, something that she never would have thought ANYONE in her life would have done.

Gaz balled her hands into fists and crept in closer to her, gritting her teeth together. "You bitch, no one flips me off and lives!" she growled as she lunged on top of Tak, catching her off guard, Gaz had successfully yanked the chair from under her and triumphantly put her foot on top of her chest firmly, slightly knocking the air out of her.

She kept her guard up as she glared down at the alien in disguise, almost daring her to try something, anything. Tak pulled her in close by yanking the bottom of her shirt and then kicked her off of her to give some space between the two. 'Man fightin' without my Pak's legs will be difficult, but I can't blow my cover' Tak thought to herself as everyone in the cafeteria gathered around, including Dib. Zim had gone off to cower in the corner, fearing Tak's mockery of being officially kicked out of the Armada and not wanting to gamble on accidentally being pulled into the middle of the scuffle between to two frightening girls.

Tak raised her fists as she waited for Gaz to make her first move. Gaz put her hands out to her side and positioned her feet charge at Tak with all she had. After a few seconds, Gaz charged forward and threw a wild looking punch as hard as she could. Tak had barely enough time to process and dodge the incredible speed of Gaz, barely ducking out of the way. Punch after punch was thrown at Tak, only to be seen as blur by everyone else.

'I can't keep it up anymore, I have to go on the offensive.' Tak thought to herself. With this thought Tak timed herself and at the right moment and lead into a straight jab at Gaz, only catching an insignificant blow on Gaz beneath her neck. After a few minutes of punches and kicks being exchanged between the two, a few teachers came in. As the teachers tore the two girls, who were now in a mess on the floor, from each other, the girls began to curse each other.

"PSYCHOTIC BITCH!" Tak sneered.

"WELL, YOU SHOULD HAVE SHUT YOUR BIG ASS MOUTH BEFORE IT GOT SHUT FOR YOU!" Gaz responded.

"That's enough from both of you!" One teacher finally said.

"We're going to get this sorted out right now!" Another added.

* * *

A few hours later Gaz and Tak were in the office getting lectured by the principal. Gaz had been ignoring him the whole time not really caring and Tak had a smirk on her face the whole time. When the principal finished speaking, he waved to the secretary to bring in their parents...well Gaz's dad and Tak's robo-parents. When they came in Gaz's dad looked both too busy to care and disappointed, while the robo-parents were doing the classic "You're in so much trouble" and "I am very angry with you" parent-child thing to get Tak out of there as fast as possible.

After about ten minutes of the principle rambling on to the robots about responsibility, Tak finally had left and Gaz was left with her dad and the principal.

"Young lady, what happened today?" Professor Membrane asked sounding like he actually cared for once. "In all your years in skool, you have never been in a fight."

'Not one that anyone else knows about...' Gaz thought.

They sat there for a couple hours trying to figure out why Gaz had done what she had done and trying to go over legal stuff to make sure nobody got sued by anyone.

When they finished this, Gaz and her dad left the office "I just don't understand why you would be getting into fights. You can't be seeking attention because you're very quiet, you can't be looking for sympathy because you seem to be happy and you're definitely not bullying, so what's wrong daughter?"

"She provoked me and she paid for it," Gaz answered simply.

"Well, you can't just go out and beat on every person who insults you, so you need to learn to keep that temper in check young lady." Her dad said nodding his finger at her.

Gaz rolled her eyes without her father noticing, "Yes, dad." The rest of the car ride was in silence, only the beeping and taping of the Professor typing on his personal device for work as always.

* * *

When she got home, her dad went back to his work, having already lectured her in the car, and she sat on the couch and turned on her show. Dib walked in and stopped, a strange feeling coming from Gaz. He took a careful look at her 'There's something different about her, but I just can't put my finger on it...' Then it hit him like a ton of bricks."Gaz!"

"What?" she answered sounding slightly irritated.

"Where's your necklace?" Dib in his whole life had never seen her without her necklace, it was almost like seeing her naked…

Gaz's eyes grew and she looked down at her neck and started to frantically pat herself down for it, 'Tak' she thought.

* * *

The next day Gaz woke up feeling strangely...happy. It was an eerie, but good and welcomed feeling. She sprang from bed with revitalized energy and went into the shower and felt the strange urge to sing, but she managed to shake the thought, finding it silly and just not like her whatsoever.

When she walked into the kitchen only to find her dad had already left for work, kind of feeling upset that she had barely missed her dad and hadn't been able to say goodbye to him yet. As she walked around the table to her seat, Dib flinched expecting her to punch him as usual, but instead, she just patted him on the head and sat to eat.

Dib looked to her with an uneasy feeling and asked "Are you feeling okay...? You don't seem like yourself."

"I...I don't know...I don't know why, but ever since that fight yesterday I've felt happier. I dunno, maybe I just worked out a bit of frustration out on Tak's face." She giggled lightly to herself as she thought back on it.

"Well stop it Gaz, it's freaking me out..."

The rest of the day continued on like this, small little things here and there like making more room for people to walk around in the halls instead of just bowling through people to get where she needed and participating in class for once. Things only got weirder when Tak bumped into her in the hallway. "Watch where your walking" the alien sneered.

"Sorry" Gaz answered by reflex, catching herself, Tak and everyone else around off guard.

* * *

This was a really pleasant chapter for me to revise, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and if you have any suggestions please leave a comment or review or whatever they're called. The next chapter will explain everything, (why Tak is back, why Gaz is acting like this and if this will ever have any ZAGR).


	4. Not Herself

Alright, nice to be back for another chapter, I'm hoping to be making this next one a bit heavier in content and have more juice to it. I'll do my best to keep the redundancy to a minimum so it doesn't get confusing. I hope you guys enjoy.

* * *

The hallway fell silent as everyone stopped dead in their tracks as they hear what Gaz had said, the silence being replaced by whispers and murmurs from among the students watching the show taking place.

"Whoa, no way…" A student who looked a little too old to be going to school said in disbelief.

"Did Gazsh Membrane jush shay _SHORRY_!?" One girl with particularly large braces said, her words slurring a bit from her braces.

"There's something really weird going on here..." Another student whispered among their group, the noise level of the hallway growing as the chatter about the current situation grew louder and louder.

Tak was caught speechless, unsure what to say or how to react to this. There was a long silence between the two of them, the faint whispers of the others surrounding them could be heard fairly as they stared blankly at each other. Finally, Tak slowly stepped over towards Gaz with a very cautious, almost scared expression on her face as she inched closer to Gaz "I beg your pardon...?"

"I said…" Gaz looked up with disbelief on her own face as if she didn't even know herself what she was doing "...I'm sorry..." She choked on her words a little bit as they escaped from her mouth, as if they were tainted with poison.

Tak's gaze began to dart around the surrounding area, thinking it was a trap of some sort, and she spoke up a bit louder "Well...um...I-I'm glad you came to your senses before...before you got yourself hurt." her words came out very shaky and uneasy, but still strong. She gave a firm nod, almost as if it was to reassure herself that everything was okay.

Gaz's wanted to say something back so bad, something along the lines of 'Take it back before you regret it' or 'I'm not going to be the one getting hurt'. It was as if her lips were glued shut and she just couldn't bring herself to say it, she could only let the feeling burn up inside of her as she held it in and did her best to brush if as if it were nothing. Gaz only replied to the nervous threat with a smile, only scaring Tak even more.

The hallway full of students stayed there, frozen in time by the whole astonishing exchange before the uncomfortable tension of the moment was cut through by one of the teachers walking by as they started shooing off the students to their next class. Everyone dispersed quickly except Gaz, as she wasn't sure what the hell just happened. Doing her best to make sense of it all, she shook her head and realized the bell had already rung and she was late for her next class. "Oh shoot, I should really hurry it up before I'm really late." She started at a brisk pace before stopping again. "Wait, since when do I care about being on time or late to class? The teachers know better than to trouble me with detention anyway. Ugh, I'm losing it. I'm sure I'll be fine once I eat. Yeah, that's it…"

* * *

Come lunchtime, Gaz's mind was at ease again as she walked into the cafeteria and the lunchroom slowly fell silent as all eyes fell on Gaz. The whispers started up again almost as fast. She grabbed her tray of food and rolled her eyes she heard more and more gossiping between everyone. With a sigh, she dropped her tray on the table and sat next to Dib. He leaned away with one eye half closed and his arms up to shield himself as he looked at her half terrified, half expecting her to explode out of rage at him. After a few moments of bracing himself for the all impeding violent outburst of rage, he finally looked over and relaxed just a little bit. "Are you okay there..?" he finally asked.

Gaz was quiet for a moment, just looking down at her food as she contemplated what to say, "I don't know..." his sister answered at a level that was almost under her breath.

Dib looked at her again, but this time more closely, noting the empty space around her neck. "Have you found your necklace yet?"

"No such luck" she answered.

Dib stopped in thought for a moment, 'When did she even get that thing?'His eyes shifted back over to Gaz, "Now that I think about it, what do you remember about getting that necklace anyway?" Dib asked, probing the situation.

"Well...I remember dad took us to an antique shop a long time ago, just before we started school. You got some dumb old alien thing, surprise surprise. There was a lot of cool stuff around the place, but I remember one thing, in particular, caught my eye. The necklace. It was almost as if it was calling to me, luring me in and I haven't even taken it off since now that I think about it." she paused for a moment "Ya know, now that I really think about it, starting the day I got it, I felt like I was someone else. And now that I've lost it, it feels like I'm free again... I really don't like it. I want it back. No, I NEED to get that thing back, from wherever it is."

"Well if you really want me to, I can try to do a bit of research on it, see if anything comes up. Who knows, someone could be selling one just like online. Just a suggestion."

Gaz gave a low growl at him "No. We need to find MY necklace, not just anyone that looks like it. But yes, researching it would help me if you could do it."

Dib only gave a nod in agreement as took a sip from his drink.

Meanwhile, Zim was off to the side at his own corner table thinking 'Now why would the Gaz-human apologize to TAK of all the people. The human is well more than capable of overpowering her so it wasn't her second-guessing her own ability...' Zim did not doubt Gaz's ability, he had seen it first-hand countless times before, hence why he pursued his hate for Dib rather than his "passion" for the human, though lately, she seemed to be not 100 percent her usual self.

"Gaz..." he said quietly to himself. "Why of all creatures in the universe, did I have to develop an interest in a human of all species? Maybe it's because she just seems so unstoppable, untouchable even. Something I could never achieve to be." He chuckled to himself "Wow, an Irken invader..." 'ex-invader' Gaz's voice rang in his head. "...er...an ex-invader infatuated with a human. And here I believed my whole life that Irken aren't capable of developing a sense of connection to one another due to our conditioning, yet here I am. Maybe it's part of me being defective?" He sighed to himself, reflecting back on the worst week of his life all those years ago, the week he got fired, well more like officially banished and kicked while he was down. The countless hours he spent looking up at the ceiling of his lair in total silence, contemplating his own existence. Eventually, he shook the feelings away and went to find Dib, hopefully making him miserable would make himself feel better, I mean it always worked for Gaz.

He saw Dib get up and head towards the library and dumped his tray, grabbing the cookie on it as he did. As soon as Dib was gone he went to follow him, discreetly placing the cookie on Gaz's tray as he passed by her and he made his way out the doors towards the library.

* * *

Dib sat a specially sectioned part of the library he used that the librarian let him use since he was seemingly always there studying something new. There was a long desk with countless books opened up, scraps of paper sticking out of them with notes written on them, and at the end of the desk was four computer monitors with something different on each of them He rolled around on a wheeled chair, looking at page after page of mysterious necklaces he had found online and the historical documents in the books marked for him. Zim watched patiently, wanting to annoy him as much as possible with his timing.

After an hour of flipping through pages and clicking in browsers, he finally found a website that had a picture of a necklace similar to Gaz's. He laughed to himself with anticipation as he skimmed through the article, trying to find an origin or location for any identical ones only to be stopped by Zim splashing his entire setup with a giant water balloon, shorting out his computer and ruining the books.

"VICTORYISZIM'S" Zim shouted out quickly before running off like a scared raccoon being caught in the garbage.

"DAMN IT ZIM! THAT WAS MY ONLY LEAD ON WHAT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING TO GAZ!" He was only able to see the name of the necklace before his computer short-circuited 'The Evolution Pendant". Dib made sure to make a mental note on this before chasing Zim down the hallway with a tranquilizer gun he pulled from his belt.

* * *

Dib got home a few hours later, the hair on the left side of his head singed and his face covered in soot. He immediately sprinted up to his room and frantically started to type on his computer "Ev...o...lu...tion...pen...dant..." he said out loud to himself syllable by syllable as typed it out.

He opened up the first group of links to pop up and started to go through each article. After about half an hour of scrolling through the web pages, he stopped at what he believed was what he was looking for."Believed to have a dark being dwelling within, these pendants were given to the bravest of warriors of an ancient, lost civilization. Not much is know about the mysterious history of this civilization, the most contributing factor is that they existed over 50 million years ago, but were still able to create some of the most marvelous structures. Though none of these structures still stand today and have not been found, their descriptions have been passed on through legends in many cultures all around the world. The last known standing structure was said to have collapsed in 1292 BCE. The structures were known for their use of many shades of purple and red and their complex, curved structure. However, many historians dismiss these theories as false due to the earliest human civilizations having existed only 5 thousand years ago."

'Curious' Dib thought. "An entire civilization disappearing without a single trace, but even more curious, the only thing of them that survived was a collection of necklaces… Now, why would that be? Disaster? A schism among themselves? No, there would still be some sort of a trace in the form of burial grounds somewhere nearby. Very strange" He said out loud to himself as he opened up a few more tabs to look at any other possible artifacts left behind.

* * *

Zim was in his lab thinking about the situation, "How can someone as strong-willed, like Gaz, just simply apologize? I can't make heads or tails of it, there's something weird going on here." Zim being himself, he didn't understand human behavior human interactions sometimes, but this time something was obviously abnormal. "If only I had access to the empire's database, then I could look up something about it. It would be much more reliable than this pesky human ' _internet_ ' but that's not possible now" Then it hit him as he thought back to a story he heard back in the academy. They would use it as a motivational factor for the invaders and soldiers, hoping they would draw from the mental aptitude in the story.

Back before the empire was even the empire, before they started conquering other planets, there was a certain group of soldiers, numbered to just 100, within the army who were praised as being the most powerful throughout the galaxy. The group was sent on a reconnaissance mission to scout out potentially uninhabited planets for the Irken to establish colonies on. As they cut through another solar system to get to the planet faster, a coronal mass ejection from the star had hit their ship and fried their onboard electronics, causing them to crash land on another planet. The inhabitants were described as massive, some scaly others feathered, but all looked savage.

Wandering the planet for resources, these Irken decided to build a base of operations to organize themselves until they could gather the resources needed to leave the plant. Over time, their number had risen as they had been on the planet for many years, presumed to be dead by their comrades at this point. Come the time the ship was ready to leave, the early warning system they had put in place gave a signal that a planet-shattering asteroid was on its way towards the planet. Out of time and out of options, they had no chance to save everyone and decided to save those who stood the best chance at survival and they felt represented them the best. They left the plant and couldn't do anything but watch as their fellow soldiers and commanders were vaporized by the impact of the massive asteroid. These survivors are where the story came from.

The crash isn't what brought up the memory though, it was the description of the necklace that was given to these fierce warriors. The Irkens that were on the planet at the time had a different way to assign jobs because paks hadn't been made yet; instead, they created small chips that created a psychic projection that boosted the wearer's abilities and behaviors needed for the job that was assigned. Each chip was worn like a necklace and had a distinctive shape according to the job that they represented to make it easier to identify their role.

"But how did the human acquire one of these and accidentally activate it?" Zim said to himself.

* * *

Good god the more I read these chapters, the more and more I hate myself for even making them in the first place. The way I talk is so cringy. And the mistakes! OH SWEET MERCIFUL LIFE THE MISTAKES THAT ARE IN THIS THING! Anyways, I'm glad I'm going through and cleaning this up and fixing it all. I hope you all like the story and are enjoying the extra content and detail I'm adding to it.


	5. Explanations

Well hello again everyone. So I'm not sure if I've said this before, but this story is something that I hold dear to myself. It's not because I'm animate about making it canonical or whatever, it's just my escape from life when I need it. Not very many people read it but I would really appreciate it if you guys would spread it to others. I really want this story to take root. Thank you all for your time. Without further delay, here's the next chapter.

* * *

The glowing screen in front of Dib had turned into a bottomless void as he stared blankly at it, his eyes red with dark bags under them as slouched over on his desk. He had stayed up all night looking for more clues as to what exactly that peculiar artifact was. He leaned back in his chair with his feet on his desk stared at the ceiling for a bit, losing himself in thought as he mentally connected all the dots of this seemingly impossible puzzle, and then it clicked. Why Gaz was always so grumpy. Why she never took it off. Why she seemed to always be the most intimidating person in any room. He sat up quickly as it came to him, losing his balance and falling back in his seat clumsily before scrambling to his feet and running out of the room to the kitchen."Gaz! GAAAAZ!" He yelled, his shrieking voice making her cringe from both the pitch and her general level of dislike she already harbored for her sibling.

"What? What?! WHAT?! What the hell do you want with me that requires you to keep shouting my name like a freakin squirrel having its guts squished by a car?"

He shivered slightly as the image crept into his mind briefly and he shook his head to regather himself. "I figured it out! It took hours of research, but I finally figured out what is going on with you, why your mood has been flipping on a dime."

"Pfft…" She puffed out. "What are you talking about? I'm feeling fine."

"Don't act like you haven't noticed it, everyone else around you has. You haven't so much as even punched me in the arm in over 12 hours, you haven't threatened ANYONE in and not a single insult has slipped out of your mouth since yesterday!" He crossed his arms and raised both of his eyebrows as he gave her a "so what" look as he waited for her to stop being difficult.

"Okay fine..." She rolled her eyes and gave a heavy sigh, hating to admit that he was right about his assessment. "What's doing this to me? And I swear to god if you say it's puberty or some shit like that, I will hang you by your feet from the roof..." Dib opened his mouth, but before he could say anything there was a knock on the door.

"Gaz-human I need to speak with you...it has to do with the serious matter at hand," Zim shouted from their front porch. There a was a small pause and then he grumbled out quietly. "Please…?"

Gaz walked over slowly, caught off by his use of the word "please" and she opened the door a crack, but leaving the door chain locked, just in case he tried to force his way in. "What sort of serious matter?"

He looked down as he wiggled his thumbs against each other as he tried to think about what it was that he wanted to say, speaking up after a long and uncomfortable pause. "The source of your Gaziness or whatever it is that you call it." He looked up at her, his eyes meeting with hers. "I think I know what it is that is the matter with the Gaz."

Without thinking, Gaz closed the door, undid the chain and let Zim in. Dib glared at him and Zim looked around and noticed Dib off in the kitchen. Both of their faces immediately turned into a look of disdain and hatred. "Alright, before you two try to kill each other, someone tell me what the hell is going on After I know, I don't care what you two do to each other."

Dib spoke up, yelling and speaking as quickly as possible to not give Zim a chance to butt in. "That necklace is an ancient pendant from a lost civilization that existed millions of years ago! It has a demon that dwells within and it has been affecting your personality for years, trying to escape into our plane of existence to enslave all of humanity and open a portal to dark below!" He breathed heavily and looked at Gaz and Zim giving him a look of annoyance.

Gaz rolled her eyes at Dib supernatural mumbo jumbo and turned her attention over to Zim. "Okay so now you tell me what is _really_ happening with me."

"So that necklace is from the Irken Empire before it was an empire or even before we called ourselves Irken. Millions of years ago, a ship filled with some of our proudest warriors crashed on this planet as a result of a power failure. Stranded, they did what any group of highly skilled soldiers would do in a situation like that, they built a base of operations until they were ready to leave. At this point in Irken history, those necklaces were the system we used at the time to assign jobs. It created a psychic link to the wearer, determined the ideal job for them, stimulated the areas of the squeedlyspooch, or in you humans case the brain, that had to do with your assigned task to increase efficiency and finally it would also make copy of the wearer's mind so if something happened to them, their consciousness could be retrieved and potentially put into another if they were deemed worthy. Since your brainwaves don't match up with the thought patterns of the Irken who wore the necklace, it tried to fix that, but since you're not Irken, it wasn't able to resolve the issue it detected and instead it was only able to implant parts of the original personality into your mind. Once it was removed your brain began to try to fill in the gaps as good as it could, essentially making you go back to how you would have behaved without the necklace in the first place." Zim paused for a second to let the heap of information seep in.

"So you telling me that I have been wearing a dead aliens job assigning chip for over 10 years, all the while it was trying to change me into that dead alien?" Gaz asked, trying to sum up everything Zim spewed out.

"To put it in a more simple way, yes."

Dib stared blankly at the two of them, trying to put the mountain of words together but his tired mind got the best of him and he gave up, only letting out a stream of unintelligible gibberish. "Smersh murf affmoir…?" The absurdness of his state just made Gaz laugh at him.

"Is the Gaz-human okay?" Zim raised his non-existent eyebrow in confusion as he had never heard Gaz laugh before.

"I'm great, don't worry! For little, while I thought I was either going crazy, had been drugged in my sleep, or Dib had done some stupid magic thing to me. Not that finding out that I was being changed telepathically is much better, but it's a little more weight off the shoulders knowing that this is just the normal me. Well as normal as a version of me that I'm not familiar with can be." Gaz said letting out little fits of giggles as she got over that nonsense Dib had just said.

Finally, Dib caught on to what Zim and Gaz had been saying. "So wait, you're saying there was a perfectly logical explanation for this the whole time? Huh…" His empty eyes glazed over as he looked at the floor and spaced out, basically falling asleep on his feet with his eyes open.

"Yeah" Zim answered. "Oh and almost forgot, there might be side effects to her not having the necklace since she had it for so long. So if you notice any abnormal changes other than personality changes in her, let me know. Anything, and I mean anything, could be crucial to her wellbeing." Zim said almost sounding like he was concerned for her.

Dib tuned in just as Zim started talking again, slurping up a stream of saliva that started to form off his lip. "Why do you care Zim?" Dib asked with great suspicion.

"I-I don't care...I just...I AM ZIM!" He shouted before storming out of the house and flying off to his house with some rocket shoes. 'That was too close, as an Irken inva...well an Irken like myself, can't be showing any sort of emotions like concern and such, it isn't normal.'

* * *

Meanwhile, Tak sat in her lab of her new base wondering about the confusing situation that had happened a few days ago, still not able to wrap her mind around it. 'Why would the human, someone as willful and stubborn as her, apologize?' Tak looked over to the necklace she ripped off the human in their fight. "And what in the world is this thing? It looks like an ordinary, run of the mill necklace, but the readings on it have been off the charts meaning it is way more complex than anything the likes of most humans have created this far on earth." She mumbled out, half talking to herself, half talking to Mimi who was in the corner of the room listening intently.

Mimi only looked at the vengeful alien and blinked, as she spoke to Tak telepathically. "What's even more curious is that the computer indicated that this is specifically Irken technology, but it is over 50 million years old which is impossible."

That was the advantage of an implant, no one could hear her conversations with Mimi, she could influence others thoughts and read minds. However, there were some drawbacks too. For example, a particularly high voltage electric shock can knock her unconscious and fry her implant permanently and she can only influence the actions of others if their intelligence is significantly lower which, as surprising as it was to her, meant she couldn't use it on Zim, Dib or Gaz.

"Computer! Analyze the pendant attached to the necklace and run it through comparisons with all objects in both the human and Irken databases. There's much more to this than there appears.."

"YES, MAM!" The computer responded as the tray with the necklace with lit up with a ray of light and it floated up. Numbers began to fill the center screen and the others started to pull up with all the Irken and human articles regarding the piece of technology. Tak's interested began to grow as she read diligently.

* * *

As the weeks went by Gaz was feeling happier and happier, both hating and enjoying the feeling at the same time. She loved it because she had slowly become accepted by the rest of the skool, but why did she care? She hated it because she wasn't used to being so nice and she slowly started to not feel the need for revenge, which was even more uncomfortable for her as she often got caught in the crossfire of Dib's and Zim's pranks. Getting used to the true side of herself was very strange, as if someone was living inside of her own body.

The rest of the skool became so used to the nice Gaz that they had almost completely forgotten about how she used to be. Her father even seemed to take notice in it and, as surprising as it sounds, was _trying_ to get time off to spend with his children for once. She was happier than she had ever been in her life and despite as uncomfortable as it was for her, Gaz was growing fond of these changes in her life. Zim, day in and day out, of this new Gaz, slowly found himself growing more uncomfortable with Gaz but found her easier to talk to. It was odd but he continued to stay around, even engaging in conversation on his own accord. The two of them would sometimes stick together at skool since most people were still a little hesitant to deal with her alone.

One day at lunch, Zim spoke up as they sat together at the table, his claws slightly digging into the table as the words finally broke through his lips. "G-Gaz?" He asked her, the hesitation showing in his voice as he was still trying to string the words he wanted to say together.

"Yeah?" She answered with a soft and simple smile, taking a bite out of her sandwich as she waited for and response.

"Well, I was sort of...kind of...I wanted to ask..." He stopped as he fought with himself in his mind. Struggling internally for a bit, he finally took in a deep breath and let it out all at once. "Iwaswonderingifyouwouldliketohangoutwithmeafterclassandplayvideogamesorsomething!" He blurted out loudly to her.

Dib, who was sitting right next to her, let his jaw drop when the words hit his ears, the food in his mouth falling onto his tray. 'Did he just ask my sister on a date!?' He thought as he quickly became skeptical about the intentions Zim had and began to think of the many reasons why the awkward alien with seemingly no emotions outside of anger, bloodlust, and hate would ask his sister out on a date. 'Okay, this is either a sick prank he's pulling in me, he's planning something or he is truly wanting to be with my sister.'

While he was thinking about this, Gaz and Zim were still talking. "Sure!" Gaz said without really giving it much thought. "Where do you want to go? I'm fine with going just about anywhere you'd like to go."

Zim almost fell back being caught off guard by Gaz's acceptance and his thoughts crowded with ideas. "Well...I was thinking of your house or Bloaty's. I mean if that's alright with you…!"

"Sounds great! I meet at the front of skool by the skool sign. Don't be late!" She gave him a smile and got up with her stuff. "Well, I gotta go take care of some things, see you later!"

"Alright, I'll see you then." Zim was still a little surprised at Gaz's response. 'Is it the Gaz that I knew that's accepting me or is it the new Gaz?' Zim thought as she walked away feeling weak in the knees.

* * *

Okay, that one took a while to do, but I hope you all enjoy it. Remember, please feel free to share this around!


	6. A Little of Both

Okay, well this chapter is probably where the stories are gonna start to diverge a bit more and more. I really want to keep them to their original personalities as much as I can and frankly, it turned to fandom trash in the original version. I hope you guys enjoy.

* * *

"Alright children!" Zim's teacher, Mr. Baxter, said enthusiastically as he called the room to silence."So tonight your homework is going to be a simple 300-word essay on love. Why we feel it, why we desire it and how it can help someone's character change for good or bad. Your essay can be literal or figurative, whatever you'd like it to be!" BZZZZZZZZZT, the final bell rang. "One last thing before you leave, make sure that you capture your true feelings about this assignment. I want it to reflect yourselves!" Mr. Baxter continued speaking over the sound of chairs and backpack zippers as the students gathered their belongings to leave.

The ear-shattering sound of the bell was music to Zim's ears as he got up and headed out. 'Here I go…' He whispered to himself as he tried to psychologically ready himself for the time he had planned ahead with Gaz. There was a deep, strange feeling in his squeedlyspooch that he didn't quite get but he just shrugged it off as nerves.

As he headed down the hallway, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being followed by someone. His immediate thought was of course, but he didn't see him, even after inconspicuously looking behind himself a few times. "The big-headed better not be up to something…" He got to the front of the school and saw Gaz greeting him with a faint smile.

"So are you ready?" She asked, kinda tugging on the bottom edge of her skirt out of slight nervousness. It was still a little weird having actual emotions for her and she struggled a bit as she tried to get a grip of nerves for a moment.

Zim was standing there with a vacant look as he thought about going to Bloaty's, remembering what happened last time he went. He shook his head a bit, pushing the feeling off as he subconsciously reminded himself 'She's worth the pain Zim. It's no big deal.' "Yeah let's go." He returned a small smile, showing his jigsaw-shaped teeth a little.

* * *

10 minutes earlier on the opposite side of the skool, Dib left his class as fast as he could in a desperate attempt to find Zim, as they hadn't had a class together since middle skool. Running down the hall as fast as he could, he glanced around quickly, bumping shoulders with people as he rushed. His shoulder connected with another person, but this time he spun around from the impact as they had a sturdy stance.

"Watch it you imbecile." The all too familiar English accent said to him with disdain.

"Look, Tak, I have no time to insult you back and get into a fight. I have something to take care of." He said quickly while picking himself up off the floor before running off again.

She stood there confused, almost insulted by how he simply dismissed her as if he didn't even know her. 'What is the human up to...?' She thought out loud as she watched him sprint around the corner.

"There he is..." Dib said to himself as he slowed to a walk. He followed Zim down the hallway, jumping behind the lockers and blending into the crowd every so often whenever Zim looked back. Watching the alien closely, he noticed Zim talking to himself as he looked down at the floor. It was as if he was trying to rehearse something to himself. 'What is he saying? Is he going over a prank he's pulling or something?' Dib snapped back to reality and noticed he was falling behind and picked up his pace, but not too fast, to where he was right behind Zim.

When he got outside, he saw Zim go toward the sign and meet up with his sister. The two of them stood there talking for a couple of seconds before they started walking down the road together. Dib trailed them, staying across the road and far behind as to be extra careful that they couldn't see him. 'Look at him,' he thought 'who does he think he is? First, he tries to destroy my planet all those years ago, then he gets fired by his leaders and starts to prank me 24/7 instead, and now he's dating my sister!' He took a deep breath to get his emotions under check and continued to tail them carefully as they walked.

* * *

They walked quietly, the two of them unsure how to really talk since most of the interactions between the two of them consisted of fights that Zim and Dib staged. "Sooooo...Zim." Gaz spoke up to finally break the awkwardness that was starting to build up between them. "I've been wondering for a while now...what happened that week you got banished. You didn't go to skool for a week and you seemed to be even more distant toward everyone when you returned?" She asked quietly, knowing it must be a touchy subject for him.

There was a moment of tense silence as the alien thought carefully how to word it, before responding. "When I found out about why I was truly sent here, I was devastated. However, it wasn't the fact that I was banished or the fact that I was told it was a fake mission so bluntly after all those years of trying to destroy Earth. No, it was the fact that starting at that point, I was truly alone on this planet with no real purpose or direction to go. No one to report to, no one who I felt was smart enough to even talk to left for me." He paused. "Then during these past few years, I developed these strange feelings and complex emotions that I had never felt before. You see, Irken are trained from the beginning to not have real emotions, spare from hate, anger, and all other emotions related, but there was something different. As time went by and I observed you humans more closely, trying to understand what these feelings were and which ones were which. The hardest part was accepting them because we Irken are not supposed to have these feelings since we are engineered to be workers and soldiers and nothing more. Those of us that do have these feelings are disposed of or banished, labeled 'defective'. However, I never had the feeling when I was part of the empire. So finding out that I was a failure from the beginning just made it all sting even more. Eventually, I guess I started to pick up the habits of humans, even some new emotions." He looked down and his eyes went wide. "Especially later part of middle skool and high skool. Wow, how some of you changed remarkably in such a short time…mentally and physically." He spaced out for a second and came back. "Eventually I started to realize I had a more prominent fondness for you in particular and, well, this all was more of just me acting on that."

"I didn't ask for your life story," Gaz said jokingly and she gave him a playful push and pausing for a second "but it's good to know that you're not just trying to get under my brother's skin by dating me..."

* * *

Dib managed to follow them all the way to Bloaty's without being seen or heard, but then he hit a major obstacle as the two of them entered the poor, greasy excuse for a restaurant. "Damn it! Ugh, I should've brought my spy equipment with me. Well, I guess all I can do is watch and see what happens." Dib said to himself in defeat.

Dib hid with his stuff beside a dumpster and watched Zim's every move so closely, he never saw his sister moving her hand slowly across the table onto Zim's. It took him a few minutes before he finally broke his intense gaze at Zim, being caught off guard by his sister's move. His cheeks turned a slight red with frustration and he continued to watch the two as pair now. Zim noticed and immediately looked distressed and pulled his hand away, looking off to the side nervously.

'Oh so now he's too good for her?' Dib rolled his eyes with disgust as he began to think about how long this could go on.

As Dib sat there watching intently, he didn't hear a set of footsteps coming up behind him slowly. "Well, what's going on here?" The English voice asked loudly as Tak gestured with an evil looking grin, giggling a bit as she watched him fall over on the dirty ground.

"AAAAHHHH!" Dib screamed, being caught off guard by Tak. He quickly recollected himself and got up on his feet. "Where the hell did you come from!? Wait, did you follow me?"

"Yes, I followed you, you twit. How else would I know where you were?" She replied sarcastically at his dumb question.

"Well you could put a tracker on me or something, I don't know..." He glanced around sheepishly and stammered a bit, feeling belittled by her tone.

"What, and waste resources on you? As if you're worth that much effort when you're so sloppy." She said scornfully. "Now answer my question, what's going on here?"

He sighed and pointed at the window. "My sister and Zim are on a date and wanted to keep an eye on them. Make sure nothing went weird or very, very wrong as they always seem to when Zim is involved."

Earlier, inside of the restaurant, Zim walked Gaz over to the table and he pulled her chair out for having learned this from studying the couples at skool. Then walked over and sat down across from her. He stayed quiet, not very sure how to strike up a conversation, not really having any sort of experience in this type of situation. "Um...how's skool…?"

"Okay, I guess. Not much really going on for me after I lost that necklace or device or whatever it was." She shrugged and leaned back in her seat. "How about you?"

"Oh, you know...same old same old. Heh…" He was dying inside as he struggled to keep things going between them. "Um...so why is it that you like this place…?"

She laughed lightly, the sound of hearing her laugh still off-putting for him. "Well like is a strong word. The place sucks, but I do like the food I guess. Maybe it's just out of habit since I've been coming here for such a long time. I'm surprised it's still open after all these years."

"Yeah, me too." He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced off to the side shyly, still trying to avoid contact with her. "Well uhh…"

A robo-waiter came to the table quickly, stopping suddenly next to the table. "Hi! Welcome to BLOATY'S PIZZA, what can I get for you two!?" The ugly looking machine asked in a way too enthusiastic voice, except for the obviously cut in the placement of the restaurant's name. Wires dangled dangerously from the joints on the arms and its head jittered rapidly from the electric motor inside. A small speaker was in the center on its chest, like a drive-thru, to take orders.

Gaz leaned closer to the machine and spoke up. "One cheese pizza and a soda."

"Coming riiiiiiiight up!" The machine did a 90° turn and took off at a hazardous speed, the single tiny wheel it rode on squeaked lightly as it moved along.

"That's one thing that annoys me about my dad's work, with all his tech going around these days, so many places are automating everything. This place switched over a while ago and these things can't hear for crap unless you get close." She leaned back in her chair again. "You know, I don't really know much about your race. What's it like?"

"Honestly, lonely and boring. They have so much to see but it's all the same kind of stuff. Cities and military structures, not much when it comes to nature since they see it as pointless since they can make anything they need artificially. Plus no one really wants to put any time into each other, it's all self-orientated but I guess that makes sense based on the fact that we're supposed to be like that."

The robot rushed over and set the food down before rushing off again. Gaz grabbed a slice and took a bit. "Aren't you going to have some?" She asked as she held out a slice to him.

Zim looked up from the table and put his hands up cautiously. "No, cheese has a rather...horrific effect on me."

"Ookayy then..." She raised an eyebrow and continued eating, the grease dripping and stretching cheese put Zim on alarm slightly and he pushed his chair away from the table a bit to avoid the chance of any sort of contact with the harmful substance.

Gaz finished a few slices as the two didn't say much outside of a few words here and there. Gaz quickly picked up on Zim's terrible ability at small talk and took the lead from there. She started asking typical things you might talk about on a date, what their lives are like, life at home, life at skool, and what they had in common. After a while, the two of them started to move on to more personal topics. Gaz felt him slowly getting more relaxed and comfortable with her, slowly creeping her hand across the table, eventually meeting with Zim's. Zim looked down and nervously for a second before he moved it away.

"What's wrong?" Gaz felt both surprised and a bit sad.

"I...I'm just...I'm not comfortable with showing the feelings in a public setting yet. It's something completely new to me." Zim answered.

They both jumped in their seats as they heard a scream come from just outside of their window. "Are. You. Kidding me..." Gaz said, pausing between words as both of their eyes landed on Dib.

"DID THAT LOWLIFE, FAT-HEADED, ASSHOLE REALLY FOLLOW US!? DID HE REALLY THINK I WOULD GO AS LOW AS TO MESS WITH HIM BY DATING YOU!?" The words came out so loud that most of the people stopped completely and stared at them and Zim quickly sunk back in his seat embarrassed as the collective attention of the entire restaurant landed on them.

Gaz quickly stood up and started to go to the door, Zim fumbling in his pocket before placing money on the table and chasing after her. The turned the corner, catching a brief glimpse of Dib crawling into the dumpster to hide. "Dib, I know you're in there." She called out in a pissed tone. "Get out here, NOW." She said, sounding like her usual self for a brief moment, Dib crawling out in defeat.

"Of all the stupid, ridiculous, idiotic things you have done in the past, this one is near the top of the list!" (Just under cursing her with Pig Mouth) "Look, Dib, I know you worry at times, but I don't need your constant protection. I'm old enough to take care of myself!" Dib didn't say much as she berated him, too scared to say anything back to her.

As Gaz continued yelling, Zim turned over to Tak. "So then Tak, why are you here? I have no missions or orders to for you to steal and nothing else left to lose."

"I can think of one," Tak said glancing over at Gaz a few times with a sly smirk, maliciously.

Zim growled. "Put a claw on her and I'll end you. Whatever you want concerns me and me alone so what is it that you want?" Zim questioned as he stood with his arms at his side.

"Oh stop being so dramatic you big smeet…" She rolled her eyes and took a few steps towards him nonchalantly. "I'm not here for you anyway, Zim. I'm here for her. Last time I tried to conquer this planet, it wasn't really you or Dib who stopped me in the end, it was her." She paused and her voice took a more serious tone. "I'm curious about why she was able to do that despite the fact that she's just a normal human. Took a bit of digging and I think I know all I need but I'll discuss that later." She turned her back to him and just as Zim took a step towards her, she spoke up again. "Careful what you do. I'm here by myself like you had been all these years, alone with no purpose. And as the humans say...how does it go? Only a fool would underestimate someone with nothing to lose." She continued to walk away as Zim stood there quietly, dumbfounded and unable to think of anything to say back.

* * *

The walk home was as awkward as can be as Dib walked home with the two from a healthy distance, not paying attention to Zim anymore. Zim managed to calm down Gaz and they talked quietly so Dib couldn't eavesdrop. "I still don't understand why he wouldn't trust you. I know you've done some things in the past, but that's all in the past. You haven't done anything but mess with him in almost 4 years. Not like you really posed much of a threat to him anymore. No offense."

"None taken." Zim took a moment to think of the right way to put it to her. "To be fair, I have stooped down to lower levels before when going against him before so I can't really blame him for not trusting me I guess. And yes, I know I'm defending the Dib, but even though he did something wrong, he had good intentions, well for the most part." Zim said.

The three of them arrived at Gaz and Dib's house, Dib going inside to avoid any more yelling from his sister, but watching from the living room window. It wasn't out of distrust at this point, but rather out of sheer curiosity of what was going on between them at this point.

Gaz caught him in the corner of her eye and decided to get a little revenge for the first time in 2 weeks. She leaned toward Zim and kissed him on the cheek, glancing over right after. Dib nearly lost it he could be seen yelling and hitting the wall. Zim was caught off guard not reacting initially. "What was that for!?" Zim shouted, his voice cracking from nervousness. Then he looked to the window and saw Dib. "Was that for me or to mess with him?"

She laughed again."A little of both I guess."


	7. A Woken Evil

Alright, from this point forward, chapters will probably slow down a lot because I plan on taking the story on a different path that fits it much better. I hope you all can understand and enjoy the changes.

* * *

Zim headed down the street to his base from Gaz's house, still trying to process what Tak had said to him back at Bloaty's. It had him a bit worried about what she was planning next and puzzled at the same time. She said she had nothing to lose, and she was right since her first real opportunity to be an invader was ruined by Zim. Then she came back for revenge and a second, and final chance, at being an invader, only to be defeated by Zim, Dib, and Gaz. After that, she became a laughing stock and a disappointment to the empire, not able to show her face anywhere without being laughed off and ridiculed by anyone who recognized. "It's exactly like how you said it," the words repeated in his head "I have nothing to lose."

"Nothing to lose," Zim said quietly to himself, the light tapping of his feet against the concrete giving a rhythm in his head as he tried to figure everything out. "Do I really have nothing to lose anymore or was I just trying to intimidate Tak? Well, at least I had my ignorance to keep me from thinking about how horrible my life had a been for so long. Tak, on the other hand, is well aware of how horrible her life really is. Then there's the fact that I have Gaz and I'm not really completely Irken mentally anymore. I'm so full of these... _emotions_ for some reason."

Zim reached the front lawn and the high-pitch squeeing of Gir could be clearly heard well before he even reached the door. He took a deep breath, trying to prepare himself for whatever catastrophe he was about to walk in on. He pushed the door slowly, wincing a bit with one eye closed, not wanting to see too much of the disaster that he was about to uncover. The overwhelming odor of maple syrup hit him, his antenna immediately going flat against his head to avoid the full brunt of the smell. Syrupy footprints clad the walls and ceiling, and more tracked on the floors going into every other room of the base. Gir sat on the couch, completely slicked with the sticky liquid, watching the monkey show with a big, happy smile on his face. "HI MASTER!" The little robot screeched.

"Gir…" He pressed the middle of his face where a nose would be in frustration and let out a sigh "..why is there syrup _everywhere_?"

"I took a waffle bath!" Gir answered, giving a big smile with his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth.

Zim just shook his head and went down to the main base without another word and got on his computer to continue research on the necklace some more, just in case there could be any side effects on Gaz. A few hours passed and his eyes were glued to the screen as he continued looking vigorously through every possible Irken archive available, even hacking into some to find more specific information. Suddenly there was a thunderous explosion from upstairs, rattling the walls slightly. He quickly jumped up from his seat as the noise startled him and, with a few weapons just in case, ran upstairs to the source of the noise. He came out of the kitchen, toilet only to enter a room filled with smoke and ash, not able to see more than a foot ahead of him. "Computer!" He shouted out, coughing slightly. "Turn on the ventilation system!"

The motor of the fans turned one, quickly pulling all the dust and smoke from the room and revealing Tak standing on the opposite of the room. She was about to speak up before he realized that something seemed strange. The look in her eyes, it was as if she had the battle experience of a thousand Irken warriors and the confidence tenfold, but when she spoke that immediately tipped the scale to the strange side. Instead of her usual English accent, a terrifying and demonic voice came out.

"You must be Zim. The previous owner of this body seemed very obsessed with revenge on you." The deep and powerful voice said, the voice slightly overlapping with Tak's own voice as it spoke. It flashed a slight grin at him. "Nice to finally meet you…"

"What...what is...the meaning of this!?" Zim shouted out at them, feeling disturbed and frightened as he pointed a blaster up at the body.

* * *

Three hours earlier, Tak walked into her new base. It was disguised as a large white house, about as plain and normal as any other houses on the block. She went upstairs, down the hall, into the room to the left; her lab. She sat in the chair and leaned back as she looked up at the large screen. "So then computer, now that you have had the time to analyze the data and scan the device, what have you found on it?" She asked out loud with her arms crossed.

"Other than it containing Irken tech and being millions of years old, it seems to be an older form of a pak, minus all the additional abilities current models have. This one simply contains all the data and memories of the original owner and can enhance the abilities of the wearer." The computer gave Tak a run-through on every last one of the available documents about the necklace.

Tak observed the necklace closely and raised a non-existent eyebrow curiously as she asked her next inquiry, "Computer, what would happen if I were to put this on?"

"As previously stated, it should stimulate the select areas of your brain based on the job it was originally intended for. This one is made for a warrior class."

Tak smiled widely as she pondered the possibilities of having the power of a warrior class. "So if I put this on, then I should be a better fighter?"

"Correct, it should increase your cognitive abilities by 150%, strength by 150%, agility by 300%, and your speed by 75%. However, I would advise against using it, as it could have unknown effects when combined with your own pak."

Tak lingered on the idea of putting it on, but hesitating on the warning of unknown effects. She thought to herself, looking down as she weighed the risks against the advantages and after a few minutes, decided to put it on despite the risk and warning. Her vision blurred for a moment and she wobbled a bit as it turned on, feeling it take hold of her body. She blinked and when they opened, she was in a large, endless void. Tak looked around the vast darkness and called out to the darkness. "What's going on here!?" She demanded, no echo coming back, confirming her suspicions that this was all in her mind.

Then suddenly, a voice, sounding like it was coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, emerged. "I claim this mind for myself, Warrior Hass!"

"Who the bloody hell are you?" Tak asked, looking around as she tried to locate the source of the disembodied voice.

"I am a warrior that protected the Irken race 50 eons ago! And now, thanks to you, I am awakened and free at last!" The voice boomed.

"Not if I have anything to say about it..." She growled out of frustration.

"You don't have a say in this matter!" He interrupted. "As we speak, that work chip is downloading my consciousness into your body! Soon your body will be mine and you will be trapped deep within the chip."

"Ha! My pak contains my memories and consciousness so good luck with that! As long as it's attached to my body, you can't take full control." She retorted. "And before you think of removing it, it will kill the both of us within moments of being removed. Have fun with that."

"Well I guess it's a good thing that I can use your implant to amplify the psychic link from this chip, now isn't it?" Tak felt the voice grow stronger as it spoke and herself shrink. "Such luck that I have a specimen as yourself to control, without that psychological influencer implant, I wouldn't have a chance at taking your body."

Tak was helpless to fight for control as she slowly felt her body stop listening to her thoughts. Within a minute Hass was in total control and Tak was unable to do anything but watch from the back of his mind, like being in the backseat of a car. He looked around, very unfamiliar with the room. Mimi came in and quickly realized it wasn't Tak, charging at Hass but the small robot was quickly shut her off remotely with the implant. He began to run diagnostics on Tak's pak and looked through her memories to get quick information on the area and its inhabitants and updates on the empire for the past few million years.

'Wow, the life of this one is depressing and pathetic. And the empire sure has changed.' He thought to himself as he began to search the base for a way to get in contact with the tallest and for weapons. 'No luck...' He thought to a memory of Tak's. 'It seems there is another Irken here...Zim is his name? Let's see now, he should be based close by. Lucky me, it appears that I will be paying him a visit since this pathetic base has nothing of use now.'

* * *

"What...what is...the meaning of this!?" Zim shouted out at them, feeling disturbed and frightened as he pointed a blaster up at the body.

Hass ignored his question and quickly lunged across the room and smacked the blaster from Zim's hand before he could even react. "Where is the entrance to your base? I will only ask this once."

"I'll never speak!" Zim spat trying to wrestle out of his hold, pulling at his hand with no effect.

"I'm not here to hurt you unless you get in my way." He kneed Zim in the gut, a smashing thud coming out as it impacted. Zim coughed up some blood on Hass' sleeve. "Now one more time before it gets ugly, where is the entrance to your base?" He demanded as the demeanor on his face didn't change.

"I'll...never...speak..." Zim grunted out stubbornly.

"I admire your ambitions but your efforts will prove to be fruitless. I simply seek to contact the Tallests and nothing else. However, if you continue to halt my efforts, I will find other ways to hurt you…" The same flash came from the eye as when Tak used her implant. "Now where is the entrance?" Zim's eyes glazed over slightly and he pointed to the tile where the pipe opens up. "Now isn't that better?" He dropped Zim and stood on the tile, quickly being pulled down from the vacuum. "Such a useful but draining ability, to influence someone's will is certainly useful." He smirked as he traveled down to the base and began to go through the corridors until he got to the communications room.

* * *

On the massive.

-INCOMING TRANSMISSION-

"Who is it?" Red whined.

"Its...Zim..." The communications officer answered.

Both Purple and Red sprayed their drinks out. "I thought we banished him," Purple said. The two looked at each other with delight as they thought about the possibility that he may be calling to beg from his job back.

"Answer it!" Red shouted as he imagined the pitiful look Zim must have on his face. When the call opened though they were utterly confused. "Oh, it's what-her-face um...uhh...Tak!"

"I think not." The deep voice emerged startling the two leaders. "I am Warrior Hass."

The two were completely puzzled yet curious by the mysterious nature presented to them "Who?" Purple finally asked.

"I did not expect you to know me, as I lived millions of years ago..."

"Then how are you alive?" Purple interrupted before Hass could continue.

He sighed in slight irritation of the childishness of the current leaders. "My consciousness was uploaded into this body and it is now my tool to use."

"Okay this is cool and all, but why are you calling?" Purple interrupted again.

"I am about to lay waste to this pitiful planet and am contacting you so that you can be ready to claim it when I do," Hass announced proudly.

"Nice, another planet to add to the empire!" Red said.

"Plus a slave race to go with it!" Purple added. "You don't need to convince us anymore. We'll be there in about a week."

"The planet will be finished before then, Hass signing off."

-END TRANSMISSION-

* * *

Zim was still alive, but barely. Gir stumbled into the room and saw him and took him to Gaz's house to warn her and Dib. Gaz was in her room still trying to forget about finding her brother spying on her. Dib was in the living room watching his paranormal T.V. show until there was a knock. Dib opened the door to find a badly beaten Zim and a syrup-covered Gir dragging him by the foot behind him. "What the heck happened!?" He was astonished by the condition of Zim, but definitely not liking the sight or smell of all the blood Zim had coughed up on himself.

"THERE WAS AN EXPLOSION AND EVERYTHING WENT BOOM AND I GOT POWERED DOWN AND MASTER GOT BEATED UP AND THERE WAS TAK BUT IT WASN'T TAK AND..." Gir rambled, the words making no sense to Dib.

"Gir chill out!" Dib shouted

Gaz heard the noise and came downstairs to see a half-dead Zim. "Oh my God! Dib what fuck did you do to him!?"

"Nothing! I found him like this!" He said defensively holding his hands up and stepping back to let Gaz through to door to look at Zim. "And why do you assume I did this?"

"This is no time to argue, we need to help him!" She screamed. "You've studied him for years, what can we did to fix him?"

"Well I never really studied his strengths, but I'm sure I can do something that can heal him up. In the meantime, get some bandages and DON'T use water to clean the wound."


	8. Preparations

Sorry for the delay in this chapter, I've been super busy at work and I have some stuff I've been taking care. I took my time to make sure this chapter came out awesome for you all so I hope you enjoy.

And as always, feel free to share this around!

* * *

Dib raced up to his room and fumbled through his bag and cabinets, finally getting hold of his notes he had made on Zim over the years. He quickly flipped through the pages, skimming through his own nonsensical babbling that he had written on those frustrating days as a kid. After a few seconds of glancing down each page, he found something that might help. Running downstairs as fast as he could, trying not to trip as he ran, he shouted to Gaz. "Okay, I think I found something that might help! It's from when I broke into his base a few years ago; it says that there was a room that looked like a laboratory or medical room. If we go there, there's bound to be some medical supplies to help him out."

"No...too dangerous," Zim grumbled out, struggling to speak through the pain.

Gaz glanced down with concern and slight relief that Zim was conscious now. "Why, what happened to you back there? We tried asking your robot buddy over there but he was making no sense."

Zim gestured Gir over. "Gir...play memory." He choked out, each word stinging him as they escaped his bruised body.

Gir saluted as his eyes turned red and then back to normal as he gave a dumb smile. "OKIE DOKIE!" His eyes projected out the memory as a hologram for Gaz and Dib to see.

Gaz and Dib watched carefully, seeing The Monkey Show from Gir's perspective and then a massive explosion. A system down flashed for a few seconds before the recording continued; everything now at an angle. Tak or, well, Hass stepped over the robot's frame and then started to throw everything around as Hass seemed to be looking for something. Zim came up, but there was no audio since Gir's systems were down. All they could tell that they were arguing and the rest was followed by Hass savagely beating Zim until he discovered the way in Zim's base.

Dib and Gaz retained a dumbfounded expression as there was still a lot of context missing from the video. "So why did Tak do that? I know she hates you, but she's never been so personal and brutal with her attacks." Dib asked.

"It's not...Tak..." He gasped and winced in pain as he sat up slowly, seeming to handle his pain a bit better now.

"Dib, right now we don't have time to figure out what happened. We need to patch him up." She said straining herself to sound calm at the sight of Zim in this condition.

"Well we can't take him to a hospital for obvious reasons, his base is not safe right now, and we have no idea what we're doing when it comes to this so what do I exactly do Gaz?" Dib replied sarcastically. "There's no real way to handle this right now without taking some sort of risk."

"I'm not gonna argue with you right now." She said, trying to focus on the situation at hand. "Let's just try to do the best we can, okay?"

"Alright." Dib sighed and let go of some of his frustration. "I'll go get some medical supplies and we'll just have to see how he reacts to certain things unless Zim has knowledge of the effects of human medical supplies on Irkens."

"No, it is all quite fine. My pak was unscathed in all of it so I will be just fine, don't worry. All the things I need are already with me, it will just take a little longer than I would like without my full medical services."

Gaz looked down and then back up at Zim who was now leaning against the wall in the living room. "I don't know what the hell is going on, but whatever it is, it's not good..."

"Well regardless, we need to know what happened back there so I'm gonna look at the video footage from the cameras I planted at his base." Zim sighed and just gave him an annoyed expression. "Heh...sorry, old habits… At least it helped out this time though?" Zim just kept starting as Dib in the unpleasant silence. "I'm gonna go now… I'll be right back."

Zim's eyes were shut tight with pain and Gaz watched him helplessly as she could do nothing. The pinkish parts on his pak lightly glowed and a faint beeping could be heard as it worked hard to heal Zim up. Gaz looked at his bruises and welts from his beating, his skin slightly pulsing as his body was being pumped full of chemicals to accelerate his healing. Not wanting to just sit by and watch, she grabbed a small cloth and began to clean him up a bit. Zim moaned in pain as she cleaned off the dust and debris from his face and shirt. Some of the damage he sustained seeing to have caused internal pain too since there were places that were especially tender to touch.

"Alright Zim, I'm gonna have to get all of the cuts so I need to lean you forward, get ready."

Zim nodded and, after taking a quick breath, Gaz grabbed his arm to pull him up. Zim winced with pain as he leaned forward and pulled his knees to his chest. Gaz pulled up the back of his shirt to reveal an array of welts and scars, some old, some new, all speaking years of damage and pain.

'Wow, Zim has been to hell and back within his lifetime...' She thought as she wiped the blood off.

Gaz cleaned him off in total silence, not sure what to really say about everything as she hadn't quite figured it all out herself yet. "Alright, put your legs down now. I need to get your front now." She said, breaking the silence after a few minutes.

"Alright, one second." Zim slowly leaned back, straightened his legs out, and took off his shirt before leaning back on his arms for support. She began to wipe off the wounds on his torso, noticing more scars, these ones looking ever more intense and deeper than the others, but she remained quiet about them, not wanting to intrude on his past.

Zim winced with pain as she dabbed and wiped up the blood, but paused when she noticed a particularly opened up wound. "I'll be back in a second, I'm gonna grab something to get this closed up for you." She left the room and came back with a needle and thread in her hand.

"What's that for?" Zim asked with a bit of a nervous look.

Gaz giggled a little. "Your has really high-tech equipment for everything huh? It's for the larger cuts on your body, I'm just gonna sew it up for you."

"I am not one hundred percent sure that I trust you to do that...plus my pak should be fine to do that." He said, backing up to the wall as she walked over with the needle.

"Oh don't be such a whiner, it's not going to be so bad." She sat down next to him. "Plus it'll keep you from getting more of these nasty scars. Now, you might feel a little-"

"GAAAHHH!" Zim screamed out loud.

"...pinch."

"And humans do this every time you get severely injured?!" Zim questioned, sounding irritated. "No wonder you all are out of your minds, you would need to be insane to develop a healing practice such as this!"

"Well, normally we take an anesthetic before we do this, but seeing as we're a difficult situation and your bizarre reaction to anything humans have, I don't think painkillers or morphine are a good idea. So yeah." Focusing on closing the gap in the flesh, Gaz tried her best to fill in the awkward silence. "So how are you already able to talk? Humans would take hours or even days to talk after a beating like that, even with medical attention."

"Well as I said earlier, my pak helps me heal at a more advanced rate than humans. That's why I can be in the rain for a short amount of time without severe damage to myself. Plus most of my kind are genetically engineered to be genetically superior in our vision." He clenched his hands as he felt the needle poke through his skin again and again. "But you can see how far our technology can only go. It's far from perfect."

Dib finally came back down only to see Gaz in front of a shirtless Zim in his living room. "Well, everything that happened makes a lot more sense turns out- What's going on here!?" Dib screeched as his face turned a bit red in anger.

"Calm your tits, Dib, I'm just stitching him up," Gaz answered.

"Yes, calm your mammary glands, Dib. She's merely assisting in my healing." Zim added.

Gaz let out a small chuckle at Zim's comment and asked. "So what did you find out?"

"Well, unfortunately, my cameras weren't functioning at the point of attack as they were offline but I managed to get them back on. For some reason, Tak or whoever that was, contacted the irken leaders."

"No, well it seems like this problem has elevated to a much more critical state." Zim pushed Gaz's hands down and bit off the end of the thread, put his shirt back on, and stood up slowly.

"So what did happen if that was Tak, but not Tak?" Dib asked him, still out of the loop.

"She has Gaz's necklace and she put it on like an idiot. The chip that the pendant has managed to upload it's consciousness onto her pak and is now in control of her, and knowing that she has the computer systems to know what it is, she ignored the warnings her AI would have issued. The name that consciousness gave me was Hass, and judging by the sound of it, a male irken."

"So is Tak still there or is she gone forever?" Dib interrupted, sounding a little distressed before realizing how he sounded and recomposing himself. "Um...not that I care. She's just a dumb alien."

Zim stared at him for a second and continued on. "Well anyway, he's been at my base long enough to figure out how to work and hack into my database. So he's probably already armed himself with some of my more advanced weaponry, and as you have already said, contacted the tallests. Not only that, but he most likely has a higher brain capacity since he was able to take control of Tak's pak meaning he can use her implant to control almost anyone; so until I find a way to counteract the implant you need to steer clear of Tak...er Hass."

"Why do you care so much?" Dib asked.

"Well as dumb as it sounds, earth has become more of a home than any other place I have been in my entire life, it's more logical to protect this planet and save what it can offer. I may not like you and vice versa, but Gaz would be upset if you were to be hurt. By the way, if we encounter a situation where I have to make a choice between saving two out of the three of us, don't be surprised if you're left to die."

Dib growled and Gaz smiled. "Noted," Dib grumbled, looking at Gaz out the corner of his eye.

"Well if we're going to stop him we need to make preparations and weapons. Until then, you two can continue to go to school, but I need to stay here since I no longer have my base. I'll try to make myself scarce around you, Dib if it compensates. I'll also try to keep Gir under control...if it's possible." Zim said.

"There is no way you are staying here!" Dib yelled.

"Zim, has no other place to go and there's no other place on the planet that has the technology to create the stuff he'll...we'll need to fight Hass and God knows what else," Gaz spoke up, putting Dib back in his place. "If you have such genius idea on where he can go and what he can do, speak up." She raised an eyebrow, the one eye open and giving Dib and expectant look as she waited for a response.

Dib stopped for a moment and sighed. "Fine, but he better keep to his promise and I better not regret my decision." He waved his hand and them dismissively as he walked away.

"Thank you, Dib..." Zim said before he left the room, shocking Did with his sincerity.

Dib stopped at the hallway entrance and looked over his shoulder as he "Just a few rules first. No exploding stuff, no experiments after eleven because I don't feel like staying up all night with the sound of a welder, and stop with the pranks."

Zim sighed at the last rule. "Fine."

Dib left the room and Zim sat down on the couch, Gaz vaulting over the back of is and plopping down next to him. "So what now?"

"What do you mean?" Zim asked as he stared up at the ceiling blankly.

"What are you going to do about Hass? They could be up to anything now and there's no telling what preparations they're making for your leader's invasion." Gaz pointed.

"You know, for the first time in a long time, I don't know. There's a lot going on now and I just need to relax while I try to recover, I'll come up with a plan after I'm better." He laid down and put his arms behind his head.

This mentality put Gaz off, Zim's never been like this before. Seeing him like this just worried her more than when he was beaten up. "Hey, uh Zim?"

She caught his attention immediately as Zim wasn't used to hearing her say his name. "Yes?"

"Just so you know, um, if you need someone to talk to, I'm here." She gave a faint smile and he nodded back at her, not saying anything back.

What to do about Hass, the tallest, the inevitable invasion that was impeding on earth. How to fix all of this before the picture got too big for just Zim and Dib to fix. This was the pressing issue they were facing now and this was more prevalent than ever before. Without the base, there was no way to get any tech that was on par with the empire. These thoughts all ran through Dib's head as he thought about the true scale of what is taking place. "Maybe I can get some help, I don't have to do this completely alone…" Dib looked over at the small laptop, it had been years since he's found anything worthy of contacting them, proven by how faded that superimposed eye logo had become. However, if there was any situation where they needed to be involved, this was it.


	9. Impeding Threat

Well hello everyone! Sorry for the long delay between chapters, I had to redo 90% of this chapter to make it work a lot better. I'd like to hear your feedback about the changes and feel free to share this around with your friends if you'd like! Anyway, without further adieu, here is the next chapter for your enjoyment!

* * *

"Damn it Gir, for the last time, get out of my lab!" Dib threw his arms down as Gir ran by and bumped into the desk and causing Dib's pen to trail off to the side and mess up an equation he was working on. His desk was covered in papers and books and the wall of monitors was full of many more models and diagrams, and there was a small metal pillar coming from the floor that seemed to be projecting a hologram of some sort of ship. It was the result of days of hard work and research and Gir was not making it any easier to work on.

"WAAAHHH WOOOOOO! WEEEEEE AHHHH! First, you gotta catch meeeeeeeeeee!" The tiny robot shrieked as it raced around the room in a random way.

Dib desperately lunged across the room and at Gir multiple times until he finally managed to get his arms around the bot but Gir just shook his grip and took off again. "Gotta be faster than that!" The robot gave a maniacal laugh as it continued to run around.

"Gir! I thought I told you to leave the Dib alone!" Zim shouted from the door as he walked in, looking around the room curiously as it had been a long time since he'd been up in Dib's room.

"Aw man..." Gir's antenna curled over to the side as he trudged out of the room slightly whining as he did so.

"Zim, you need to keep that thing under control while I'm trying to work! Look what he did to my lab!" He threw his arms up dramatically at the mess of papers that trailed on the floor around the room. "I thought we had an agreement, you get to stay here, and you stay out of my way."

"Look, Dib, there is no amount of electronic engineering or talking that can control that machine, I have tried fruitlessly. I am doing the best I can right now so keep calm." Zim explained, slightly irritated. "Plus I have been distracted with making the weapons we will need. It should not be delayed for too much longer as your sister is, well, she's helping me when I need an extra hand and that is what matters."

Gaz seemed to have been using the time Zim's been over as an excuse to just spend as much time with him as possible, whether she was just simply watching him craft parts of the weapons he was making or talking to Zim whenever he took a break. After getting used to her being around, he starting having her help weld parts and even taught her a little about energy sources for the weapons. All the building and playing around with tech and such, it reminded her a bit of her father, the way he would always be working on something new and so excited to show it off, but she never had the enthusiasm to talk to him about it or enjoy the excitement that he had, Instead, she spent her whole time playing games and ignoring the world around her. This time she had with Zim, it kind of filled that new feeling she had, they want to spend time with someone and doing something they enjoyed.

"That's still no excuse for my lab being completely destroyed. From now on, if that robot so much as even comes near me, I will personally dismantle him and use the scrap for my own weapons. Understood?" Dib threatened and he started gathering his papers that were scattered around the room.

"Got it." Zim replied as he rolled his eyes, "And this 'lab' is just your room so stop being so uptight and official."

Gaz walked in right before Dib could snap back at him. "Zim, I think I found a facility that has the types of metals we need. They manufacture grade 5, 23, and 12 titanium alloys that would work great for what we need."

"Amazing work, that's just what I needed!" Zim's praises just made Gaz happier as she smiled as they left the room.

Dib shuddered at her; no matter how long it's been, he still wasn't used to this version of Gaz. It was so cheerful and happy, but still threatening when she needed to be, a deadly mix in his opinion. Not only had she still managed to scare the crap out of him when she caught him spying on her and Zim, but she was also calm and straight-headed when Zim showed up at their door a week ago to help him out and not completely freak out. To Dib, there just was no getting used to it as she had been the other way for as long as he could remember.

"We can leave to the facility in a few minutes, I just have to get something in the basement before we leave." The basement had slowly become Zim's room and lab since had been allowed to stay, most of the things there were just the project he was working on. Rummaging through a few boxes, he pulled a small box from under his makeshift bed and looked inside. "Good, Gir didn't get to it." He said to himself with a sigh of relief.

"Get to what?" Dib asked, sneaking up on him and startling him.

Zim jumped and grabbed his arm and threw Dib over onto his back before realizing who it was. "Ugh, you really are a nincompoop. Why would you sneak up on me after knowing what's going on?" Dib just stared up with his breath knocked out. "It's a present for your sister. I've been doing research on human relationships lately and one thing that seemed consistent and particularly important was gift giving." He opened the box and showed Dib. "She's been helping me so this is just a mutual exchange, nothing more," Zim said, trying to convince himself more than Dib that this was in no way emotionally motivated.

Dib picked himself off of the ground as Zim opened the box and his eyes opened with wonder before he recollected his senses. "So why this in particularly...? And how the heck did you even get that?" Dib asked suspiciously.

"I had to create it artificially and stabilize it with a bunch of other painful and tedious processes. It was almost impossible to do without her knowing, as she was practically my shadow for the last few weeks, but I managed." Zim closed the box and put it in one of his pak storage compartments. "Well I should go before she gets any more suspicious We should be back in a few hours, it's not too much that we need. Later!" He shouted back as he ran up the stairs in a rush.

As soon as Gaz and Zim were gone, Dib took the opportunity to snoop around the lab, walking around until he came across a red, round, metal box. "Must be the weapons he's working on." He opened the box to reveal an array of strange-looking weapons, some looking deadly and other looking just plain out weird and useless. He shrugged and continued on walking around looking at all the gadgets and inventions around the room and on the walls.

He passed a cylindrical object with a symbol similar to the one on his shirt, but when he tried to open it, it was locked. It seemed to be an incubator of some kind since it was connected to another tank with a nutrient solution inside. Dib's curiosity got the best of him and he tugged on it some more until a warning system kicked in. "FURTHER ATTEMPTS TO TAMPER WITH MACHINERY WILL RESULT IN DISINTEGRATION"

"I think I'll just leave that alone..." Dib said quietly backing away.

Dib looked around the room some more, finding all sorts of schematics and blueprints for things that even he couldn't figure out. "Ugh, it's a wonder how he was never able to take over the earth if he could make weapons like this. Such a waste of amazing technology..." He turned around and his sight fell to a closet that had been added by Zim. Approaching it slowly, he reached out and opened it to find Gir on a machine that appeared to be doing diagnostics and routine maintenance. Gir's eyes turned blue. "POWERING UP SIR UNIT"

Dib's eyes widened "No no no no no!" he shouted as he began to mash buttons and pull levers, trying anything to get the mini atrocity to power back off, but it was fruitless. 'Well I can't blame Zim this time...' He thought to himself as he ran to shut the door before the robot was loose.

* * *

Meanwhile, Zim and Gaz took a ship Zim had made and headed off to the facility with the needed materials. "So what now? That place has to have some serious security if they make materials like that." Gaz asked.

"Simple, here." He handed her a small disk and put one on his chest.

"So what? We wear a hubcap and they let us in?" She said sarcastically and then Zim went invisible, a shimmer quickly going over him from the feet up as he turned invisible. "Oh, now I get it." She smirked and put it one and activated the device.

"Now any surveillance should be of no concern to us now," Zim said triumphantly.

"One more question for you, genius." Gaz turned off the cloaking device and leaned over on her arm and gave another sarcastic look. "How are we supposed to move everything without being seen now? We need thousands of pounds of metal."

"Just leave it to me, you shall see." The dome to the ship opened up and he jumped out, Gaz sighed and went down with him.

"Where are you? We can't see each other either. This plan is a mess already."

"I'm over here, just follow the sound of my footsteps," Zim said quietly from a few steps away.

The two of them headed in and, after looking through a few, they found where all the titanium was being made. "Alright Dende, show me the magic."

"Who?" Zim asked confused.

"Nevermind, just show me how we're going to move everything."

"Like this!" Zim took out a small cube and threw it out in front of himself and it expanded out into a larger cube. " All we do is put everything in here and the box will shrink back down and weigh no more than an apple. Easy as that."

Gaz gave a nod of approval. "Well, all the stuff we need should be inside of these barrels all over the place. Just find the ones marked with what we need and roll them over."

About 30 minutes later they loaded everything they needed and Zim closed the cube and the two left back to the ship. "Well, that was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. What now?" Gaz asked as she turned off the invisibility.

"Umm...how about we just relax? Just go somewhere and take a breather? We've been working nonstop for weeks, even I need a break every now and again."

"Sure, but where to? Oh, I know! There's this gaming shop downtown that has this game I've been waiting on for sooooo long, let's do that!"

Zim did what he could to hold a smirk back. "Yeah, let us go do that then."

"One thing before we go, I have something for you." He reached into his pak and handed over the box. Just a formal thank you for all the help lately."

Gaz opened it up and a faint blue glow bounced off of her face and her mouth opened in surprise a little. "What is it?"

"It's a blue star. Well to be more accurate, a continuous miniature fusion reaction contained within a casing that keeps it harmless." He stopped for a second. "In a way it is a bit of symbolism for you, a beautiful and destructive force with boundless potential contained by a case it can't escape, your casing being this planet."

Gaz was just about to reply when there was a sudden and powerful explosion in the distance.

"What the hell was that!?" Gaz asked quickly and startled by the thunderous boom.

"I don't know, but it can't be good," Zim said, as the explosion had come from downtown.

"I think we need to get back as fast as possible and get the weapons." He continued with a hard tone in his voice. "This might get ugly."

"Yeah...no shit..." Gaz said nervously.

The two of them zipped off in the ship, heading back as soon as possible and Gaz burst through the door in a rush. "Dib! DIB!" He was standing in front of the T.V., not responding to her, just standing in silence, jaw dropped with a shocked look on his face as he pointed to the T.V. in stunned silence as the news played on.

"No..." Gaz said in denial.

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen, Chad Newswick here live on the scene at Membrane Labs where there has been a massive explosion!" The news reporter said as he ran from the news van towards the sidewalk near the burning and collapsed buildings. "First responders are on the scene and there have been no reported survivors yet. No witnesses so far have reported a possible cause, as firefighters struggle to extinguish the blaze."

As the reporter finished his sentence he was interrupted by Hass, who was on a hovering platform in the air. "People of earth!" He announced in a booming voice. "I claim this planet in the name of the Irken empire! You have 24 hours to get your affairs in order and ready yourselves to either surrender or prepare for full-scale war. The choice is up to you what happens. I urge you to choose wisely..." The camera went back to the reporter who was standing with his jaw dropped until he finally collected himself and continued. "There you have it...the human race is due to extinction within the next day unless we become a reckoned force..." He said, completely shocked by the news that had been dumped on him. "Uhh...yeah. There you have it."

Gaz fell back onto the couch, her face burning with anger and rage, but mixed with a feeling that she's never experienced before. Hot streaks ran down her cheeks and she touched her face and looked at her wet hand, and then she lost control of herself as she started to let go of all sensation; crying profusely. "Dad..." She called out quietly in a shaky voice, her body trembling. Zim just stood by and watched, not sure what to do or how to comfort her.

Dib didn't cry out, just stood there with his fists clenched up tightly until he let out a long, blood-curdling scream and then starting shouting out at the room. "THAT PIECE OF CRAP HASS JUST MADE THIS A WHOLE NEW KIND OF FIGHT..." He paced back and forth across the room, talking out loud. "This fight is now not only a fight for my very life, along with the rest of the human race, but it's now even more personal..." He let out a harsh breath and stopped in his steps. His words started to stumble and stutter as he began fuming with emotions and started making a plan out loud. I-I-I'm gonna tear his stupid green head off! Gonna just just just...I'm gonna go to his base and drag him out by his stupid little antenna. AHHH!"

Zim was confused. 'But was the father not ever home or even there for them during the major parts of their life? I guess this is one of the many things that Irkens can never understand about the bond between parent and child.' He thought as he walked towards Gaz, placing a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to make her feel any bit better. "Listen, I will not rest or until I find him and stop him-"

"NONONO, NOT STOP. KILL." Dib interrupted. "He crossed the line already when he took Tak from me, but it's a whole new level when he kills someone you love, when he kills family..."

Zim looked up with Gaz still clutched to his chest. "What do you mean 'Took Tak from you?'"

"Wah? I...I never said that!" He stammered.

"Yes, you did."

"Okay fine, I guess I still kinda have a crush on Tak. I mean you can't blame me when she came the first time we met, she was one of the only people in the skool to hang out and listen to me babble on about every little scheme I had planned up. She tolerated my constant yammering about the supernatural and she shares, mutual hate for you." He admitted. "But that's not important now, what's important is that we take care of Hass."

"Well don't dwell on it. Even if we stop Hass, it is very unlikely that her consciousness is still fully intact after being repressed for so long." Zim explained. "Even if she's still there, it's very likely she won't remember much about herself."

Dib nodded his head in acceptance. "Doesn't change the goal."

"Now we need to get the weapons. They are still not fully complete, but they will suffice for now until I stabilize their power cores." Zim helped Gaz up and wiped the tears off of her cheek and they went to the basement.

"Why is the basement destroyed?" Zim shouted in an annoyed tone, his voice echoing up the stairs.

"Oh...right...well you see, I sorta maybe kinda let Gir out and he started running around and he ran around destroying stuff, but I managed to stop him," Dib said.

Zim pressed his fingers on the spot where a person's bridge of their nose would be like he had a headache. "I'll yell at you later. We desperately need to find Hass and take back my base. There's a lot to do if we are going to stop a full-scale irken invasion." He took a few of the blasters and handed one to Gaz and Dib. "For now, we are going to do our best to get whatever information we can get from Hass. Do not let your emotions let you make rash decisions, it could cost us our lives.

Gaz nodded at Zim and he looked at Dib for a reply, raising a nonexistent eyebrow to him. "Yeah, I'll keep myself in check."


End file.
